Mr. Benjamin has thought proper to publish his despatch to me in the Richmond
newspapers.
Having had committed to my charge the interests of several parties absent in
Europe, which my departure would seriously injure, I have requested Mr.
Benjamin to rescind that portion of the order requiring me actually to
withdraw from the confederacy.
[Enclosure in No. 12.]
Acting Consul Fullarton to Mr. Benjamin.
Savannah,
October 22, 1863.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt, on the 14th instant, of your despatch to me of the 8th,
communicating to me the president’s order that I should promptly depart
from the confederacy, and in the mean time cease to exercise any
consular functions within its limits.
Your despatch conveys to me the reasons which have induced this action.
These reasons have no existence in fact, and I should content myself
with a simple denial of the charges you make, were it not that you found
them upon language used by me which I should have supposed could not
fairly be misconstrued; but as it has been so strangely misinterpreted,
and such serious and I may say unheard of charges have been preferred by
you against her Majesty’s government, and against all her Majesty’s
consuls in the confederacy, it seems to be due to them at least that I
should endeavor to disabuse your mind.
In the first place, I will observe that your accusations are made against
her Majesty’s consular servants in the plural number. Mr. Cridland, of
Mobile, has not exercised any of the functions of his office; therefore,
Mr. Walker, her Majesty’s acting consul in Charleston, and myself, are
the only officers to whom your charges can refer. Mr. Walker will
doubtless deal with the matter in his own way, and I propose to defend
myself only.
That you may be under no mistake as to what my instructions in reference
to the service of British subjects in the armies of the confederacy or
any of the confederate States really are, I will here repeat them, viz:
“That the plainest notions of reason and justice forbid that a
foreigner, admitted to reside for peaceful and commercial purposes in a
State forming a part of a federal Union, should be suddenly and without
warning compelled by the State to take an active part in hostilities
against other States which, when he became domiciled, were members of
one and the same confederacy.”
Therefore, both in contemplation of the organization of the militia of
the State of Georgia, and in anticipation of a State draft from that
organization for purposes inconsistent with that instruction, it was my
duty to advise such of her Majesty’s subjects as might be enrolled for
militia service and subjected to such draft, in the language you have
first quoted; and unless you possess the information that all her
Majesty’s subjects in the State of Georgia have enlisted in confederate
service, I am at a loss to understand how you can regard this as an
assumption on my part of “the power of determining whether enlisted
soldiers of the confederacy are properly bound to its service.”
The second quotation of my language is as easily explained. Militia
service is peculiarly an organization for neighborhood defence, and if a
British subject, being a militia-man, is called from his neighborhood,
which is properly defined by the word home, or involuntarily drafted
into service for which he is not liable, I have done no wrong in
directing him to refuse the required service by rejecting the arms that
may be thrust upon him; and it is this advice to British subjects, not
enlisted, but willing to perform all that the laws of the State can
justly require of them, that you have been pleased to magnify into
advice “to soldiers of the confederate armies to throw down their arms
in the face of the
[Page 864]
enemy.” It
seems to me impossible to read the language you have quoted without
perceiving that it has no application at all to the enlisted confederate
soldier, unless, as I said before, you assume that all British subjects
have enlisted in the confederate service, and I should imagine it is not
necessary for me to tell you that the fact of enlistment deprives the
soldier of all protection, as of right, from the consequences of his
enlistment.
Having thus shown how extravagant is the construction you have placed
upon my language, I have only to deny the correctness of every
conclusion you have drawn and every assertion you have made. I have not
failed to forward to her Majesty’s government a copy of your despatch,
and I shall inform them of the publication and circulation you have
thought proper to give to it.
I am, &c.,
